The one mistake you shouldn't make at uni...

It might be more clichéd than a budget horror film, but the power of hindsight is not something to be dismissed...

We've all made mistakes, and it's these that help us grow and face future challenges. But, even if you personally cannot benefit, then spread your wisdom - you never know if karma is keeping its eye on you...

One of my biggest regrets after uni was not the fact that I didn’t go out as much as I’d hoped, or that I had to re-sit my second year, it was the squabbles I had over bills!

Something that should have been a trivial matter became the bane of my third year because I naively agreed to collect my housemates’ share of bills each month and pay our supplier from my card...

The first few months went fine, but after the Christmas holidays when one of our housemates didn’t return until a month later, everything went downhill...

He refused to pay his share for that month, and although I could see his point, it meant that the rest of us had to pay more. In one ear I had the rest of the house telling me to be firm and get the money, in the other, I had him trying to split everything on a per-day basis - it was a nightmare. I just wanted to be shot of the responsibility!

The argument continued for the rest of the year. So, as you can imagine, this made living arrangements, nights out, and even graduation awkward as hell, as it caused a divide between us, with me in the middle - given I still had to deal with all parties to get the bills.

If I’d have known the stress of trying to organise a bunch of “adults”, I’d never have agreed to it. The rows over bills still affect me to this day, with two of my housemates refusing to have a joint reunion because of the other’s attitude.

So, my advice to you is not to study harder, party harder or eat more takeaways, it’s to make sure that your house can manage their bills without acting like children!

If you cannot, or, if you simply want an easier time at uni, get an agreement with a provider who is willing to bill each person individually – that way, you’ll never have to pay their share or sort out their arguments.